The Last Country - England, Oct. 29

Ok yeah, I know, if England is the "last country", then Prague couldn't have been the "last city" during the "last days". But I make my titles what I want, so too bad if you're a stickler for blog title posts!

It's been a bit since my previous post, sorry for the long delay! I really didn't have a whole lot to talk about other than my travels, since I was visiting family and I prefer to keep personal life off the internet if possible. I know it's mostly family reading this now, but I intend to keep use this website for more than just blogging, meaning anyone could come here and read this. I was also getting a bit exhausted by the end of this trip and wasn't really motivated to write another blog post.

But I'm finally back in the states now! This post will be the second to last post, in which I cover everything I've done since leaving Prague (I visited family in England for a week). The next post will be the final post, where I'm going to recap the whole trip, and I'll compare all the places I've visited. Stay tuned for that!

Also, this post has a lot more text than pictures, sorry if you prefer it the other way round! But I wasn't really visiting any new places, so there wasn't much new to photograph. But anyways, here's all that's happened in the last week of my trip!

On Thursday of last week, I had a flight from Prague to England to visit family once more before heading back home. I checked out of my hostel for the last time on this trip, and made my way to the airport. This consisted of 2 legs, first an underground train, then a bus. And the station near my hostel was very deep underground, must have been around 100 meters! There were no stairs, only escalators that felt like you were on them for an eternity.

The platform had some interesting decoration on the wall, there are loads of dimpled panels sort of like a golf ball. Those dimples are actually great at reducing drag, but these were only at the platform where the trains are stopped, not through the entire tunnel where they're actually moving. So I think these are just more decorative than functional, but they still look cool!

Then I hopped onto the bus, got to the airport, and got some food for lunch. In most airports I've been through, there's a "secure side" of the airport that requires you to have both your travel documents and bags checked at a central checkpoint. However the Prague airport does it a bit differently, only your travel documents are checked before the "secure side." Your bags are instead checked at the gate. So each gate has its own x-rays and metal detectors, which I think is a silly way to do it.

For one thing, it's wasteful. Those scanners aren't being used for the majority of the time, since they only can be used when people are boarding at that gate. A central location can have all of its scanners in use all the time, meaning fewer are needed.

Second, it's slower than a central security checkpoint. If everyone is getting funneled through this single small checkpoint, one or two slow people can hold up the entire line of people behind them. Since central checkpoints tend to have lots of scanners in parallel, a couple slow people can't hold up everyone since the next scanner over is moving.

Another annoying thing is that the gate information is withheld excessively. The gates at the Prague airport are separated into terminals A-D, with a handful of gates in each terminal. At the main entrance to the airport, I found a sign with departing flight info, but it didn't show which terminal to go to! So I just had to pick a random checkpoint to go through and hope I ended up close to the right terminal.

Only after that did the signs saying which terminal the flights were at, but they didn't show which gate number! So I made my way to the terminal and found another sign with flight info, which said the gate number wouldn't be posted until an hour before the flight. Seriously? Why is the gate info so secretive! Gates are usually chosen well in advance, it's not like they don't know what gate each flight will use.

I finally got onto the plane and settled in. I ended up having a whole row to myself, which was nice. And it was crazy windy at that time, even just sitting at the gate, the plane was bouncing around! Bits of paper were flying around outside, the ground crew were struggling to stand straight, and foliage was getting blown sideways. I spotted a windsock that was completely horizontal, I've never seen that before.

Since we took off into the wind, we got into the air pretty quickly! I nabbed a few photos during the flight, the first 2 are below and above the clouds in Prague. The last one is over  England with a fantastic reflection of the sun.

I landed at Gatwick and got through the border control pretty quickly. Definitely helps that I've got a British passport! I was visiting my grandma first, and she was definitely happy to see me again. I can tell it's difficult for her to be living on her own now, so I was glad I could lift her spirits by visiting.

After staying with her for a few days, I can tell we have very different cooking styles. I'm not a huge fan of cooking, so I usually make a lot of food in one batch so I've got leftovers for a couple days. But my grandma prefers cooking for every meal and not having any leftovers, so we did a lot of cooking while I was there! We also made a big batch of sausage rolls, which we've not done together since I was much younger. It was definitely good to spend time with her.

While I was there, I also took a number of COVID tests. I was required to take one 2 days after arriving in the UK, which was Saturday. The US also requires a test within 3 days of departure, meaning at least Sunday. Since those don't overlap, I had to take 2 separate tests to meet those travel requirements. On top of that, I also had a bit of a sore throat on Friday (which turned into a mild cold), so I took yet another test right away on Friday. All came back negative, so I can be pretty certain I didn't have COVID while I was in England!

However, the same can't be said for many other UK citizens. The UK is going through a large spike in cases right now, and it really does not seem to be getting managed well. From what I heard, masks are not required on public transit, only "strongly recommended." And guess what, many people on the public transit weren't wearing masks! Only about a quarter of people actually had them on. Frankly, that's ridiculous. A message to people in the UK: wear your mask in public places!

After spending a few days with my grandma, I took a train to visit my cousins in Purley again. I took the same route as last time, but had way more trouble with the trains this time. I got to Victoria Station just fine, after which I had one more train to the final station. I hopped on the train and waited for it to depart. About 1 minute after the scheduled departure time, the driver made an announcement that the train had been cancelled. What!? How can you just cancel a train right as it's about to leave?

Everyone on the train instantly hopped off and quickly made their way to a train on the adjacent platform. I didn't actually know where it was heading, but figured it must be the same route since everyone was getting onto it. I didn't have time to figure out its destination, because the doors had shut just a few seconds after I got on.

As it left the station, I read the display showing its route, and the station I needed wasn't listed. Great, now I'm on the wrong train! It was at least heading in the same general direction, so it's not like it took me away from where I was going. I got off at the next station and looked for a different train that went to the right place. I found one on my phone, and went to the platform to verify the route info. Same destination and stops, same platform, same time. Great! A train arrived at that platform 1 minute before the scheduled departure time, so I hopped on.

Now, you'd think that if my phone agreed with the information at the station, and a train arrived at the correct time at the correct platform, it would be the correct train, right? Well apparently not! This train didn't actually go to the station I needed either! What the heck?? How could this possibly be the wrong train??? I hopped off at the next station and finally got on a train going to the right place. How was this so difficult!?

In addition to that trouble on my way to Purley, I had troubles on my way out as well! My flight on Wednesday was scheduled to depart at 2:45pm, so I found a public transit route that left around 10:30, and got me to the airport around noon. I had 2 transfers, each around 10 minutes, which is plenty of time if everything runs on schedule. Guess what, my first train wasn't running on schedule.

It arrived at the Purley station 7 minutes late. My transfer at the next station was 12 minutes, meaning I had 5 minutes to get to the right platform. Shouldn't be a huge problem, I thought, train stations are easy to navigate now that I've done it in 4 languages over 2 months. But as this train went on its route, I could tell it was moving rather slowly. That's probably because it was delayed and now had to wait for other trains at the following stations, so there would have been no point to going any faster.

But it would have been nice if that were communicated! Not knowing that made me even more worried. Now I was thinking I'd have to run to catch the next train, and I was getting a bit stressed. I probably would have been less stressed if I knew it was going to be too late, since I could then just find a different route. But not knowing made it more stressful, since I had a flight to catch.

At one point, the train just stopped on a bridge for 5 minutes. No announcements or anything, just sat around with me getting more and more anxious about whether I'd make my flight. When we did finally arrive at the station, it was about 20 minutes after the scheduled arrival time, so obviously I missed my transfer.

That wasn't a huge problem, I had scheduled extra time just in case anything went wrong. I found another train that departed about 15 minutes later, which thankfully went to the right place that day! I got off at the station for my last transfer to a city bus, which went direct to the airport. I got to the bus stop, the bus came after a couple minutes, and it drove right past me.

You've got to be joking! I'm already delayed, and now the bus won't pick me up? This is ridiculous! It turns out that stop wasn't in service for whatever reason, so I ended up just walking all the way to the next stop. Thankfully that one was being used, and I finally made it to the airport over 30 minutes later than planned. That left 2 hours before my flight, which was making me a little nervous since I had to go through check-in.

I had tried checking in online the day before, but their system was "unable to verify my health documents" meaning I had wait in line. And oh boy did this line move slowly, it took about 30 minutes to get through. It looked like more of a bag drop than a check in counter, so I was getting really paranoid over the idea that I would have to check in elsewhere after waiting in this line, and possibly miss my flight. I seriously did not want that to happen, because all the ticket prices got jacked up 4-5 times what I paid since the US is opening its borders soon.

Fortunately everything went smoothly after that. I was able to get checked in and get a boarding pass, and even got through security super quickly. I still had an hour and a half before the flight left, which was plenty of time to get a quick lunch, although there were nowhere near enough food places in the terminal. Most of the shops were selling stuff like jewelry or clothes. Seriously, who buys those things at an airport? I go to airports because I'm flying somewhere, not for fashion apparel!

Once I'd finished eating, I wanted to head to the gate. And you know how the Prague airport didn't share the gate info until an hour before the departure time? Apparently Heathrow likes to do the same. Seriously, what's up with this? And I know for certain that it's not because they hadn't yet decided which gate the plane would be at, because the gate was was printed on my boarding pass!

Dear airports: Please have the gate info for all flights available at all locations at all times. Thank you.

Anyways, I finally got onto my plane and got back to the US with no more transit issues. I got another row to myself, which was definitely nice for such a long flight. I bought the overpriced internet access since it wasn't an overnight flight. That definitely helped me keep my sanity being stuck in a seat for almost 10 hours. I took a few more photos on this flight, and got some cool views.

Once we landed, I breezed through border control since I've got US citizenship too. My mom picked me up, and we went home for a curry dinner. Finally home after 2 months of travel!

I'm definitely glad I went on this trip! It's made me way more comfortable with the idea of moving to another country, and it's certainly been nice to get a better sense of what places I like and don't like. I've never liked the idea of living in a city, because I've only ever known the US style of cities which are so car heavy. But now having seen a variety of European cities, I could totally see myself living there. They're just so much more pleasant to be in than the major US cities I've visited.

As I mentioned before, there will be one more conclusion post to sum up this trip and compare all the places I've visited. I've definitely got a lot to say, so I might need some time to compile all my thoughts together. Keep an eye out for The Last Post! And thank you all for following me on my trip, it's been great reading everyone's comments!